Our Broken System

Our broken system of social reform, i.e. Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, had taken us to unimaginable levels of debt and ironically, insecurity.  As Ray posted and I whole heartedly agree with, our country with a few minor exceptions has forgotten what family, community, and brotherhood really mean.  (More on that as a solution later).  These programs that were enacted after the Great Depression to provide assistance to those in need and also to provide for the elderly when they retire, has gravely fallen short, in part through overborrowing from our government, and in part from abuses on the system from the public.  Just yesterday in the NYTimes, it was reported that there is currently a massive debate on how to reduce the size of government and eliminate runaway spending.  One idea thrown out is to raise the retirement age again.  The other is to bring up the size of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid in hopes of reducing it.  The retirement age seems to be the way they are headed, but how high can we raise the retirement age before it exceeds the average life expectancy of a person in the U.S.  The other, which seems highly unlikely to be brought up, the overwhelming size of SS and M/M, is where we really need to go.  Although politicians recently voted in are proposing 60 billion in cuts over the next few months, they are cutting the wrong areas, affecting the livlihood of the states we live in, reducing money flowing to local governments, and cutting money that could otherwise assist in creating jobs.  If we perpetuate the current rate of spending on Social Security and the medical programs, but the year 2050, our government will effectively be spending the same amount of money on these programs that they raise in taxes in a year, grinding our country and government into utter stagnation.  (If you don't believe me, do a little research.)  Part of our current problem stems from the inability of people to save money.  Despite our recession, there is no impetus to put money away for when we really need it.  Most of us live with excesses that we could do without.  If you actually looked at your Social Security statement and how much you would receive upon retirement (if it is actually there), it comes no where close to amount of money we currently live off of.  Now don't get me wrong, these programs were enacted for the good of the people, but true social security should come from our local community and family.  There is no true sense of community amongst the majority of people these days, party due to urban sprawl, the automobile, and ironically, the mode of communication that I am currently using, the internet.  These causes deprive people of the basic need residing in everyone, human interaction.  While the internet claims to bring people together, (which it can), it also takes away our ability to see others for who they truly are.  Imagine the effect we could have if each one of us took the time to help just one family in need in our neighborhood.  There are plenty of people in need these days.  You could say, what about welfare?  Welfare is a hoax at this point, drained to the point of obsolesence by people who abuse the system.  Does it do some good, yes, but we could affect more people if we turned to our community to help.  If you think that welfare really helps, take a drive down John St. in Bridgeport underneath the Rt. 8/25 connector bridge and take a look at all the homeless who it doesn't help, or check out the Yale soup kitchen in New Haven and see the listless people come in for a meal provided for by the community, not by Social Security or Welfare.  These are difficult topics, which the government has no easy solution for.  If each one of us takes the time to make an impact on one other person that we don't know, that ramifications could be spectacular.  Just yesterday, I was at the bridge on John St. handing out bags of toiletries to the homeless.  To see the faces of these people, the human faces, thankful for some help, more thankful than that person you hold the door open for walking into the bank, is humbling.  I am only one person, and by no means am I perfect.  I just wanted to illustrate the effect we could have.  I could go on with these social programs and the effect they have, but to sum it up, we must change our view of community, family, and brotherhood if any change is to come about at all.  Till next when I will discuss fat monkeys and the pharmaceutical industry (really not joking), say high to your neighbor and listen to their story.